That's a Wrap! Post-Festival information, reflections shared

The totals are in — and Grammy award-winning rock ‘n’ roller Rick Springfield, perhaps best known for his 1981 hit “Jessie’s Girl,” drew the largest crowd in Secret City Festival history.

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By Beverly Majors/Staff

Oakridger - Oak Ridge, TN

By Beverly Majors/Staff

Posted Jul. 3, 2013 at 8:42 PM
Updated Jul 3, 2013 at 8:44 PM

By Beverly Majors/Staff

Posted Jul. 3, 2013 at 8:42 PM
Updated Jul 3, 2013 at 8:44 PM

The totals are in — and Grammy award-winning rock ‘n’ roller Rick Springfield, perhaps best known for his 1981 hit “Jessie’s Girl,” drew the largest crowd in Secret City Festival history.

A whopping 2,305 tickets were sold for Springfield’s Saturday night concert on the UCOR Concert Stage.

“And that doesn’t include workers and children,” said Jane Gibson, with Oak Ridge Recreation and Parks and the Secret City Festival committee.

“Last year’s 38 Special was the next largest,” she said, pulling in 1,764 concert-goers.

The Dirty Guv’nahs drew a crowd of just under 750 for the Friday night concert, which Katy Brown of the Oak Ridge Convention & Visitors Bureau said “was typical of the Friday show.”

The Dirty Guv’nahs were “very entertaining” and “appealed to a different audience (than Springfield),” she said.

“We’ve had people come from all over the country to the festival,” Brown said. “And that was true for this year. We had people from Florida, Michigan and South Carolina (to name a few) who came to see Rick.

“Rick Springfield drew a huge crowd from out of state,” she said. “One small group of women (about eight) all meet up to see him — and this year they chose Oak Ridge.”

However, she said the committee “was very impressed with the way the Dirty Guv’nahs run their business.”

“They were willing to do anything to help promote (the festival),” Brown said. “With Springfield, we dealt only with his publicist. That (relationship with the Dirty Guv’nahs) was different. We interacted with them.”

Brown said the ORCVB is now hearing back from some of the 2013 vendors and arts & crafts people, who so far are saying their numbers were up from last year.

“The vendors who had ‘give-away’ stuff, gave it all away,” she said. “Overall, we’re heard a lot of wonderful things about this year’s festival.”

Despite rumors circulating around the lack of a World War II reenactment this year, which Brown said she hadn’t heard, she said that the “Life on the Front Lines of WWII: A Soldier’s Life” programs were “a wonderful set-up.”

“It was extremely well done,” she said.

The new “Salute to Soldiers” program included living history activities, exhibits and a USO show. The program was presented by Five Oh First Group, the same group involved in the popular (and loud) reenactment events of the past.

Page 2 of 2 - Those who toured the “Salute to Soldiers” site saw military camps, military vehicles and educational displays, as well as a small battle reenactment.

Brown said the festival’s Executive Committee made the decision “to try something different.”

“It was time to change it up a bit, that’s all it amounted to,” she said about not having the reenactment this summer.

“We decided this was the 11th year (of the Secret City Festival), so let’s see how it goes,” Brown said of the change. “It was meant to be different, to keep it fresh.

“If you continue to have the same ol’ festival, people may get tired of it. It was time to offer something different.”